| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: sleeping-sack, on the other hand, is always ready - you have only
to get into it; it serves a double purpose - a bed by night, a
portmanteau by day; and it does not advertise your intention of
camping out to every curious passer-by. This is a huge point. If
a camp is not secret, it is but a troubled resting-place; you
become a public character; the convivial rustic visits your bedside
after an early supper; and you must sleep with one eye open, and be
up before the day. I decided on a sleeping-sack; and after
repeated visits to Le Puy, and a deal of high living for myself and
my advisers, a sleeping-sack was designed, constructed, and
triumphantly brought home.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: whose end is procreation, the tyrant finds himself defrauded of such
mirthfulness,[37] poor monarch! Since all of us are well aware, I
fancy, that for highest satisfaction,[38] amorous deeds need love's
strong passion.[39]
[37] "Joys sacred to that goddess fair and free in Heaven yclept
Euphrosyne."
[38] For {polu diapherontos} cf. Browning ("Abt Vogler"), not indeed
of Aphrodisia conjoined with Eros, but of the musician's gift:
That out of three sounds he frame not a fourth sound, but a
star.
[39] i.e. "Eros, the Lord of Passion, must lend his hand." "But," he
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: and started for the woods after wild chickens, always serviceable,
always ingratiating and gay, I would sometimes wonder where he
found his cheerfulness. He had enough to sober him, I thought, in
his official budget. His expenses - for he was always seen attired
in virgin white - must have by far exceeded his income of six
dollars in the year, or say two shillings a month. And he was
himself a man of no substance; his house the poorest in the
village. It was currently supposed that his elder brother,
Kauanui, must have helped him out. But how comes it that the elder
brother should succeed to the family estate, and be a wealthy
commoner, and the younger be a poor man, and yet rule as chief in
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